The Knesset Finance Committee approved the 2019 state budget on Monday evening, a necessary hurdle before the final voting in the plenum.

“We approved a good budget and now the work moves to the Knesset plenum,” committee chairman Rabbi Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) said.

Rabbi Gafni had refused to allow the budget bill to come to a committee vote until the government had finished deliberations on the military draft bill and a compromise had been agreed, in accordance with the instructions of Gedolei Yisrael.

The proposed budget for next year stands at 479.6 billion shekels ($139.2 billion).